u/Cautious-Pay-7114

So I have been considering launching a RTD drink for quite a while. I own a small online retail store as well as sell on Amazon and know my products and industry well. I know what main ingredients I want to use in the drink. I have also tasted many different varieties, and informally tested flavors at home and have a good idea of the two flavors I want to launch initially.

I was looking at some of the flavor houses, beverage developers and feel a bit overwhelmed. With what I’m looking at I think I would prefer to find a beverage consultant and really dial in two flavors at a smaller scale and then decide whether to move forward. I think realistically I am willing to spend about 6-8k for flavor development of the 2 flavors. After that I would maybe be comfortable with a 30k investment for the first run of inventory.

-Does anyone have any recommendations on great beverage consultants who can work with my price range?

So I have been considering launching a RTD drink for quite a while. I own a small online retail store as well as sell on Amazon and know my products and industry well. I know what main ingredients I want to use in the drink. I have also tasted many different varieties, and informally tested flavors at home and have a good idea of the two flavors I want to launch initially.

I was looking at some of the flavor houses, beverage developers and feel a bit overwhelmed. With what I’m looking at I think I would prefer to find a beverage consultant and really dial in two flavors at a smaller scale and then decide whether to move forward. I think realistically I am willing to spend about 6-8k for flavor development of the 2 flavors. After that I would maybe be comfortable with a 30k investment for the first run of inventory.

Advantages for the product:
-I wouldn’t call it niche but I think it would be a product I could focus on placement into health food stores. I would assume this is helpful to help narrow my marketing while the brand builds.

-I already have solid relations with some of the raw ingredients.

-I already have an established Amazon brand and a PPC manager who is pretty solid

My questions are:

-Does anyone have any recommendations on great beverage consultants who can work with my price range?

-If I dial in some good flavors and produce around 30k in inventory, would it be smart to focus on Amazon sales as I start to scale?

-Is this a reasonable plan for development and scaling small and slowly. Dial in the product, get some sales on Amazon and then move into advertising into health food stores.